Politics and American Democracy – Page 97

The Responsibility of Republican Voters

New York Times – Editorial

The Responsibility of Republican Voters

The Editorial Board – January 15, 2024

An elephant tied to a post by a red necktie. — Credit…Illustration by Rebecca Chew/The New York Times

The editorial board is a group of opinion journalists whose views are informed by expertise, research, debate and certain longstanding values. It is separate from the newsroom.

Republicans who will gather to cast the first votes of the 2024 presidential primary season have one essential responsibility: to nominate a candidate who is fit to serve as president, one who will “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

Donald Trump, who has proved himself unwilling to do so, is manifestly unworthy. He is facing criminal trials for his conduct as a candidate in 2016, as president and as a former president. In this, his third presidential bid, he has intensified his multiyear campaign to undermine the rule of law and the democratic process. He has said that if elected, he will behave like a dictator on “Day 1” and that he will direct the Justice Department to investigate his political rivals and his critics in the media, declaring that the greatest dangers to the nation come “not from abroad but from within.”

Mr. Trump has a clear path to the nomination; no polling to date suggests he is anything but the front-runner. Yet Republicans in these states still have their ballots to cast. At this critical moment, it is imperative to remind voters that they still have the opportunity to nominate a different standard-bearer for the Republican Party, and all Americans should hope that they do so. This is not a partisan concern. It is good for the country when both major parties have qualified presidential candidates to put forward their competing views on the role of government in American society. Voters deserve such a choice in 2024.

Mr. Trump’s construction of a cult of personality in which loyalty is the only real requirement has badly damaged the Republican Party and the health of American democracy. During the fight over the leadership of the House of Representatives in the fall, for example, Mr. Trump torpedoed the candidacy of Tom Emmer, a lawmaker who voted to certify the 2020 election results, to ensure the ascendancy of Mike Johnson, a loyalist who was an architect of the attempt to overturn that election. (Mr. Emmer has since endorsed Mr. Trump.) But some Republicans have set an example of integrity, demonstrating the courage to put their convictions and conservative principles above loyalty to Mr. Trump. Examples include people whom he once counted as allies, like former Attorney General Bill Barr, former Gov. Doug Ducey of Arizona, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats.

Voters may agree with the former president’s plans for further tax cuts, restrictions on abortions or strict limits on immigration. That’s politics, and the divisions among Americans over these issues will persist regardless of the outcome of this election. But electing Mr. Trump to four more years in the White House is a unique danger. Because what remains, what still binds Americans together as a nation, is the commitment to a process, a constitutional system for making decisions and moving forward even when Americans do not agree about the destination. That system guarantees the freedoms Americans enjoy, the foundation of the nation’s prosperity and of its security.

Mr. Trump’s record of contempt for the Constitution — and his willingness to corrupt people, systems and processes to his advantage — puts all of it at risk.

Upholding the Constitution means accepting the results of elections. Unsuccessful presidential candidates have shouldered the burden of conceding because the integrity of the process is ultimately more important than the identity of the president. “The people have spoken, and we respect the majesty of the democratic system,” George H.W. Bush, the last president before Mr. Trump to lose a bid for re-election, said on the night of his defeat in 1992. When Mr. Trump lost the 2020 presidential election, he sought to retain power by fomenting a violent insurrection against the government of the United States.

It also means accepting that the power of the victors is limited. When the Supreme Court delivered a sharp setback to President George W. Bush in 2008, ruling that foreign terrorism suspects held at Guantánamo Bay had the right to challenge their detention in federal court, the Bush administration accepted the ruling. Senator John McCain, then the Republican Party’s presidential nominee, said he disagreed with the court, “but it is a decision the Supreme Court has made, and now we need to move forward.”

By contrast, as president, Mr. Trump repeatedly attacked the integrity of other government officials — including members of Congress, Federal Reserve governors, public health authorities and federal judges — and disregarded their authority. When the court ruled that the Trump administration could not add a citizenship question to the 2020 census, for example, Mr. Trump announced that he intended to ignore the court’s ruling. After leaving the White House, Mr. Trump refused repeated demands, including a grand jury subpoena, to return classified materials to the government. As the government investigated, he called on Congress to defund the F.B.I. and the Department of Justice “until they come to their senses.”

Voters inclined to support Mr. Trump as an instrument of certain policy goals might learn from his presidency that changes achieved by lawless machinations can prove ephemeral. Federal courts overturned his effort to deny federal funding to sanctuary cities. Campaign promises to roll back environmental regulations also came to naught: Courts repeatedly chastised the Trump administration for failing to follow regulatory procedures or to provide adequate justifications for its decisions. His ban on transgender individuals serving in the military, announced on Twitter in 2017, was challenged in court and reversed on the sixth day of the Biden administration.

In 2016, Mr. Trump appealed to many caucus and primary voters as an alternative to the Republican establishment. He campaigned on a platform that challenged the party’s orthodoxies, including promises to provide support for domestic manufacturing and pursue a foreign policy much more narrowly defined by self-interest.

Voters who favor Mr. Trump’s prescriptions now have other options. The Republican Party of 2024 has been reshaped by the former president’s populism. While there are some meaningful differences among the other Republican candidates — on foreign policy, in particular — for the most part, Mr. Trump’s “America First” agenda has become the new orthodoxy.

Mr. Trump is now distinguished from the rest of the Republican candidates primarily by his contempt for the rule of law. The sooner he is rejected, the sooner the Republican Party can return to the difficult but necessary task of working within the system to achieve its goals.

In the enemy camp. What the future holds for Russia

The New Voice of Ukraine – Opinion

In the enemy camp. What the future holds for Russia

The New Voice of Ukraine – January 15, 2024

Putin claims that Russians are living better

Russia will become North Korea, and Putin will become Kim Jong-un

Regarding Russia and its near future, we must realize that the margin of economic and institutional stability of Russian statehood will remain strong. However, Russia will still undergo profound changes and transformations.

The political system in Russia will be in a state of latent turbulence. The ruling Kremlin elite will do its best to preserve the image of the collective Putin in the public mind. However, the Kremlin’s towers will be swaying in different directions as all participants prepare for the transition of power in post-Putin Russia. A step-by-step plan has been created on how and who to act.

In the Russian Federation, people’s trust in each other is low by world standards, which indicates tension in society, mass fears, and mutual alienation at the social level.

A similar situation will be observed in the regions, particularly in the national republics and autonomous districts. Centrifugal processes will accelerate, provoking a reaction from the central government. A striking example of a “watchdog” over certain national fringes is the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov. This will provoke even greater confrontation.

The Kremlin’s towers will be swaying in different directions

These processes will be deepened and accelerated by the country’s difficult social and economic situation, which has wholly switched to war. Inflation, an increase in the discount rate, higher prices for food, fuel, housing, and utilities, significant import restrictions, and rising lending rates will also increase tensions. The social gap between large metropolitan areas and the regions will rapidly deepen. Forced mobilization and border closures will increase the shortage of skilled labor. At the same time, it is impossible not to note the steps the Russian Federation took to stabilize the financial and economic system, which resulted in a budget deficit of 0.7% of GDP.

Putting the economy on a war footing, coupled with the West’s toughened sanctions policy against exports to Russia, will undoubtedly lead to a deepening shortage of certain consumer goods, from imported cars and spare parts to gaskets and toothpaste. Gray imports, which the Russians use in their military-industrial complex, cannot cover the needs of a country of 110 million people for essential hygiene products or household appliances. This situation will undoubtedly strengthen China, which is already actively pursuing economic expansion in Russia. An example is the assembly of JAC cars under the Moskvich brand at the former Renaut plant. The well-known Russian Lada Kalina will suffer a similar fate of complete “Chineseization.”

The state of affairs in the Russian armed forces will also affect public sentiment. “Meat assaults” will remain a key tactic of Russian generals. This will affect the moral and psychological state of the personnel, and the growth of the death conveyor will further drive Russian society into alcoholic apathy. The return of demobilized soldiers from the front will lead to massive criminalization of the Russian hinterland, including yesterday’s convicts. Problems with army logistics will remain. Russian soldiers will continue to be massively underfunded and underprovisioned and will go into battle with outdated weapons.

Old and new special operations

Russia will not abandon the KGB’s usual practice of creating “sources of instability” in different parts of Europe and the world. The main areas of such work are the Balkans (Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina), Kazakhstan (northern regions of the country), Armenia, Moldova, the Baltic States, Niger, and Sudan. In the Baltics, the Russians will only “shake” the socio-political situation through their agents, playing the old card of “protecting the rights of Russian speakers.” They will provoke a direct armed conflict in Kosovo, using historical differences between Serbia and the former autonomous province of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. In Kazakhstan, a scenario using proxy armed groups such as the “Donbas militia” of 2014 is possible. The main goal of such sabotage activities is to divert attention from Ukraine and create global chaos and the illusion that complete peace cannot be established without the participation of the Kremlin and Russia.

Putin’s Death and the Transition of Power

2024 is the year of the Russian presidential election. However, even Putin’s death or re-election for another term will not fundamentally change the strategic situation for Ukraine. But there are nuances.

Putin’s obvious re-election will show that the Kremlin’s policy remains unchanged. That is, the military and political leadership will continue to try to implement a strategy to restore the Russian Empire within the borders of the former Soviet Union.

At the same time, the order of the International Court of Justice in The Hague significantly restricts Putin’s international communications. It marginalizes not only him personally but the entire country. Consequently, Russia’s official representation in the international arena will primarily be purely formal. It will only be fully effective in some African and Asian countries. As a result, this factor will undoubtedly push Russia to the margins of the global political landscape, turning it into a third-world country. This status has already become a significant problem for Russian elites and those Russian citizens who are used to considering themselves “people of the world.” And now they will live in a new “North Korea” with a new “Kim Jong-un.”

Abbott’s war on migration has led to another tragedy in Texas

CNN – Opinion

Opinion: Abbott’s war on migration has led to another tragedy in Texas

Opinion by Alice Driver – January 16, 2024

Editor’s Note: Alice Driver is a writer who divides her time between Mexico and the US. Her latest book is “The Life and Death of the American Worker: The Immigrants Taking on America’s Largest Meatpacking Company.” Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books and Oxford American. The views expressed in this commentary are her own. Read more opinion at CNN.

On Friday, a woman and her two young children struggled to cross the Rio Grande’s unpredictable waters to get from Mexico to Eagle Pass, Texas. US Border Patrol agents tried to enter Shelby Park, which runs along the US side of the Rio Grande, to save the woman and her children. The agents reportedly reached out to Texas state officials about the emergency by phone but received no response.

Alice Driver - Luis_Garvan — Alice Driver – Luis_Garvan

Democratic US Rep. Henry Cuellar said in a statement late Saturday that US Border Patrol agents went to the park and asked to be allowed to render aid to the migrants, whom he identified as a mother and her two young children according to Mexican sources, but were denied entry.

“Texas Military Department soldiers stated they would not grant (the Border Patrol) access to the migrants — even in the event of an emergency,” Cuellar said, adding that Mexican officials recovered three bodies on Saturday.

Texas officials deny mishandling the crisis. “TMD (Texas Military Department) was contacted by Border Patrol at approximately 9:00 pm on Friday in reference to a migrant distress situation. TMD had a unit in the vicinity of the boat ramp and actively searched the river with lights and night vision goggles. No migrants were observed,” the agency said in a statement to a local ABC affiliate.

But Joaquin Castro, a Democratic congressman from Texas, suggested Gov. Greg Abbott bears direct responsibility for the tragedy. “Texas officials blocked US Border Patrol agents from doing their job and allowed two children to drown in the Rio Grande,” Castro said, an account confirmed by the Department of Homeland Security. “Governor Abbott’s inhumanity has no limit. Everyone who enables his cruelty has blood on their hands.”

To know that a young family is struggling to navigate cold, swift waters and to do nothing to prevent their deaths is cruel and evil.

But for Abbott it is more of the same: His policies take an unduly harsh line on immigration, even if it means putting the lives of innocent people at risk. The state of Texas should be held responsible for these deaths.

I’ve been an immigration writer for years, including at the Eagle Pass crossing, and I’ve seen heartless policies against people trying to enter the United States. Abbott’s are among the worst I’ve covered.

I’ve interviewed countless migrants very much like the woman who perished this weekend. If this mother and her two children had been saved, they might be applying for asylum and imagining a future together far from the harm and privation they likely experienced in their home country.

As The Atlantic explained in recent reporting, the mother and her children would face a backlog of asylum cases that grew to 1,009,625 in 2023, and they would wait an average of four years to get a hearing. Had they survived, I might be interviewing them today, as I have solicited the personal stories of hundreds of migrants along the US-Mexico border over the past decade.

The two children might be taking photos with the Polaroid camera that I carry around, and writing messages with the rainbow-colored markers I also keep at hand.

“What do you want me to write?” children often ask me, wide-eyed, when I tell them they can write or draw anything they want on their photos. They sometimes share messages like “I hope God grants me asylum” or “I hope I don’t get separated from my mom.” There is so much to learn from the stories of people fleeing war, famine, drought and the effects of climate change.

These are lessons, however, that appear to have been lost on Abbott. During his time in office, he has been on a warpath to criminalize and dehumanize migrants, spending more than $4.5 billion on Operation Lone Star since 2021, his ramped up effort to prevent border crossings, including by deploying floating razor wire barricades in the Rio Grande. And he has spent more than $100 million to send asylum seekers legally in the US to Democratic-run cities, usually without notice and without providing sufficient — if any — food or warm clothing for the journey.

Abbott’s policies seem not too dissimilar to the family separation initiative put into place by former President Donald Trump in that inflicting cruelty, pain and trauma appear to be tools to deter migration. Nevertheless, Operation Lone Star — like Trump’s family separation policies — appears to have had little effect on stemming migration. It would appear that the misery migrants have been fleeing for years is worse than even the cruel anti-immigration program that Abbott has devised.

On December 18, he signed into law SB 4, a measure that attempts to wrest the power the Constitution gives the federal government over immigration and put it in state hands. SB 4 made entering Texas illegally a state crime. Abbott’s efforts to criminalize migration have included stringingconcertina wire and erecting anti-climb barriers along the border and installing an $850,000 floating barrier made of buoys separated by saw blades along the Rio Grande in Eagle Pass.

The Fifth Circuit Court ordered Texas to remove the floating barrier last year. In a recent radio interview, Abbott said — shockingly — of his policies: “The only thing that we are not doing is we’re not shooting people who come across the border — because, of course, the Biden administration would charge us with murder.”

Abbott has made Eagle Pass a focus of his immigration enforcement policies. But he has done so without the support of local authorities. Mayor Rolando Salinas questioned why Abbott closed Shelby Park, which is public, without his permission. “That is not a decision that we agreed to,” Salinas said. “This is not something that we wanted. This is not something that we asked for as a city.”

The confrontation between the US Border Patrol and the Texas National Guard troops and Texas Military Department represents a looming power struggle between Abbott and the Biden administration — one in which federal officials must assert their authority.

Abbott’s policies prevented the federal government from exercising its constitutional power to save a mother and her two children. Luis Miranda, a DHS spokesperson, said, “The Texas governor’s policies are cruel, dangerous and inhumane, and Texas’s blatant disregard for federal authority over immigration poses grave risks.”

Even before the tragic deaths at Eagle Pass, the Biden administration appealed to the US Supreme Court about Texas blocking access to the border. Abbott’s power struggle with the Biden administration sets a dangerous precedent, one that shows wanton disregard for the lives of migrants.

By now, it should be clear to Abbott that ratcheting up cruelty is not a way to stem migration. Instead of militarizing the border, Texas and the federal government should instead invest in humane asylum policies that don’t heap tragedy upon people arriving to this country who have already experienced so much hardship and loss.

Democratic Governor Exposes GOP ‘Weakness’ In Trump’s Iowa Caucuses Win

HuffPost

Democratic Governor Exposes GOP ‘Weakness’ In Trump’s Iowa Caucuses Win

Ben Blanchet – January 16, 2024

Trump Emerges Victorious In Iowa

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) flagged one takeaway that could spell bad news for the GOP after Donald Trump’s comfortable victory in the Iowa caucuses on Monday.

Pritzker, in an interview with MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, noted that “almost half” of the Republican Party’s base showed up to vote against the former president. Trump, as of early Tuesday morning, received 51% of the vote.

“I mean, this is the most famous Republican. He’s the guy who, you know, basically built the modern Republican Party, the MAGA Republican Party that the Democrats are running against, and half the people in that party didn’t vote for Donald Trump,” he said.

The Illinois governor added that the results, which show an overwhelming win by the GOP front-runner who faces 91 felony charges over four criminal cases, were “telling.”

“It tells you the weakness of Donald Trump and also the opportunity for Democrats, ’cause in the end, look, if the base doesn’t turn out for Donald Trump in the general election enthusiastically, and Democrats turn out its base, this is all about independents, and independents don’t like Donald Trump,” said Pritzker, a Biden campaign surrogate.

“So, I think we’re in a pretty good place tonight to see what’s happening on the Republican side,” he said.

Pritzker, who has knocked Trump on a number of occasions, added that the race could be “over” if the former president wins in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

“But the truth is all of these candidates are running as sort of mini-me Trump Republicans,” he said of the 2024 GOP presidential field.

“They all have exactly the position that you mentioned earlier, six-week ban on abortion, they want a national abortion ban, the Republican Party is standing against working families and Donald Trump is representative of, I think, everything that is wrong with the current environment in politics.”

After Iowa, Trump Is Back to Command the National Psyche. He Never Actually Left.

The New York Times

After Iowa, Trump Is Back to Command the National Psyche. He Never Actually Left.

Matt Flegenheimer and Maggie Haberman – January 16, 2024

Former President Donald Trump arrives in New York on Monday. Jan. 15, 2024, after winning the Iowa caucuses by 30 percentage points. (Doug Mills/The New York Times)

DES MOINES, Iowa — There was a time, not so long ago, when those wearied and horrified by the presidency of Donald Trump could almost convince themselves that the man was gone.

He was ostensibly a movement leader in exile, simmering in Florida, his flailing election lies confined to private monologues and modest platforms. He was no longer appearing on Fox News, the most powerful media organ of the right. His screeds on Truth Social did not land with the force of their tweeted predecessors. Even as a declared presidential candidate for the past 14 months, Trump often ceded the campaign trail to his rivals (who mostly fought one another, instead of him), skipping debates and appearing only episodically at public engagements that were not matters of the courts.

But with his landslide victory in Iowa, codifying his double-fisted hold on wide swaths of the Republican electorate, two conclusions were inescapable by Tuesday morning.

Trump is back as the dominant figure in American political life — destined again to be ubiquitous, his entwined legal and electoral dramas set to shadow the nation’s consequential year.

He also never actually left.

After a White House term that often consumed the national psyche hour by hour — stirring his supporters and panicking his critics with each wayward post and norm-busting impulse, culminating in the attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob on Jan. 6, 2021 — some Trump-fatigued members of both parties and the political press seemed at times to be wishing him away, as if media oxygen alone had sustained him the last eight years.

Maybe he wouldn’t really run again, some imagined. Maybe, like a boxer, he’d punch himself out. Maybe the Republican Party, punished at the polls in several elections since his 2016 triumph, would find its way to someone else.

Instead, if Trump wins next week’s New Hampshire primary, a march to a third nomination is all but certain. His detractors own no earplugs effective enough to block that out.

“Very few Democrats — apart from the deeply paranoid or intuitive — would have told you in the immediate aftermath of the Jan. 6 insurrection that Trump would be the Republican nominee again in 2024,” said David Axelrod, who was a top adviser to President Barack Obama. “Once again, his feral genius for shaping a story of victimhood and commanding his base was underestimated.”

Trump, of course, did not have to speak much to keep his base with him. And as a candidate over the past year, the more he talked about the 91 criminal charges against him, the more Republicans returned to him.

Democrats are keenly aware that for all the attention paid to Trump’s indictments and his voluntary visits to some of his civil trials, his plans for a new term and his incendiary statements are far less visible to the general public. Some in the media were reluctant to direct their audiences to Trump, especially shortly after he left office, for fear that it would only amplify his lies about his election loss. Privately, some on the left lament that Twitter’s suspension of Trump’s account — after the Jan. 6 attack — served only to remove him from view.

Since 2016, both Republican and Democratic leaders have often agreed that it helps Democrats to have Trump at the political fore. His failed reelection in 2020 became, in large part, a referendum on his rampaging tenure. The 2022 midterms, a disappointment for Republicans, came after a drumbeat of congressional hearings about Trump’s conduct on and around Jan. 6, a kind of rolling television series — with videos produced by a former television executive — dedicated to what House members called his crimes against democracy.

Axelrod noted that Trump, after a primary season in which his top-polling rivals have tiptoed around him, is preparing to face President Joe Biden, “an opponent far less reticent about attacking.”

Democrats are plainly hoping that Trump’s abundant legal peril will remind voters once more of the chaos that has often trailed him. Biden has signaled his plans to highlight Trump’s efforts to subvert his loss in the 2020 election, invoking the attack on the Capitol and Trump’s revisionist history of what happened.

But it is unclear whether Trump’s trial on federal charges stemming from his efforts to remain in power, which is currently scheduled to take place in March, will occur before Election Day as he challenges the validity of the indictment. And absent a trial, the Biden team’s ability to focus public attention on the events of Jan. 6 is far from assured.

Polling has captured the degree to which Trump has been speaking mostly to Republicans to date — and shaping their thinking about the violence that followed his 2020 loss. A recent Washington Post-University of Maryland survey showed that far fewer Republicans blame Trump for the Jan. 6 attack than did in 2021. More than two-thirds of Republicans said it was “time to move on.”

“The overwhelming majority of Americans are aware of Trump’s legal troubles, and a significant number say that a conviction would have some bearing on their vote,” said Liam Donovan, a Republican strategist. “But absent the spectacle of a preelection trial and adjudication, it’s not clear that awareness is enough in an environment where the former president polls stronger than either of his previous elections.”

As a candidate in Iowa, Trump was often conspicuously outworked by his competitors. He showed little interest in changing or modulating. It did not come close to mattering, at least not in Iowa, and his court appearances often created their own sense of motion, despite having nothing to do with actual politicking.

And so Trump — who detests little more than being mocked, who delights in little more than doing the mocking — found on Monday an early-state validation that eluded him eight years ago, when he lost in Iowa (and insisted falsely that the caucuses were stolen from him).

But even back then, he seemed to grasp something that many others came to realize much later. In a 2016 speech in New Hampshire, just before his first primary win, he observed: “A lot of people have laughed at me over the years.

“Now,” he said, “they’re not laughing so much, I’ll tell you.”

The US is starting 2024 in its second-largest COVID surge ever, experts say

Today

The US is starting 2024 in its second-largest COVID surge ever, experts say

Maura Hohman – January 15, 2024

The United States is in the middle of a wintertime COVID wave, driven by holiday gatherings, people spending more time inside, waning immunity from low uptake of the new COVID vaccine and a new highly infectious COVID variant, JN.1.

The U.S. Centers of Disease Control and Prevention released an update on Jan. 5 about the prevalence of JN.1, explaining that the new variant may be “intensifying the spread of COVID-19 this winter.” Test positivity and wastewater data show that viral activity in the U.S. is higher than this time last year, with wastewater data especially rising rapidly the past several weeks. (COVID-19 deaths and hospitalizations are still lower than last year, the CDC noted.)

Cases are high globally, too, an official with the World Health Organization said during a Jan. 12 media briefing. Maria Van Kerkhove, Ph.D., WHO’s COVID-19 technical lead, estimated that viral levels are two to 19 times higher than what’s being reported around the world.

According to some experts and data models, the current surge in the U.S. is its second-largest since the pandemic began — after only the omicron surge from late 2021 to early 2022, which infected more people than even the early days of the pandemic.

According to Lucky Tran, Ph.D., science communicator at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, projections show as many as 1 in 3 people in the U.S. could be infected with COVID during the peak months of the current wave and up to 2 million people could be infected in a single day — data he attributed to Michael Hoerger, Ph.D., assistant professor at Tulane University School of Medicine who leads the Pandemic Mitigation Collaborative’s data tracker.

Line graph of the 8 U.S. COVID waves. First 7 peaks labeled "pandemic was raging." Current surge labeled "pandemic is raging."

Subtweet.

Tran tells TODAY.com that “many people underestimate just how much virus is around.” But research shows that once people are aware of the real levels, “they (are) more willing to wear a mask, social distance when required, to stay home and get vaccinated and take all of those measures,” he adds.

Is the U.S. in a COVID wave in 2024?

Yes, the U.S. is in the middle of a COVID wave, multiple experts tell TODAY.com.

A CDC chart of national and regional COVID trends in wastewater shows the national viral activity rate of 12.44 from the week ending Dec. 30, 2023 is higher than anything seen since January 2022, as far back as the publicly available CDC data goes. (The national rate for the week ending Jan. 15, 2022, was 22.78.) However, the rate dipped for the week ending Jan. 6, 2023, to 11.79.

CDC spokesperson Tom Skinner tells TODAY.com via email that “COVID 19 in wastewater is currently (at) very high levels across the country.”

“Last year, the peak of infections occurred in late December, early January. We are seeing early evidence of the same timing this year, but we will continue to monitor closely,” Skinner continues.

“These levels are much lower than the Omicron wave in early 2022,” he says, adding that JN.1 is the most frequently detected variant in wastewater. Skinner did not specify if the current COVID wave is the country’s second-largest.

The CDC noted in its Jan. 5 statement that wastewater and test positivity data are both higher than the year before by about 27% and 17% respectively. It added that wastewater levels “are currently high and increasing in all regions.”

Hoerger tells TODAY.com that based on the wastewater data collected from Biobot Analytics (which used to provide the CDC its wastewater data), the U.S. is in its second-largest COVID surge. He says his own predictive model indicates cases will continue to rise until mid-February. He estimates that mid-December 2023 to mid-February 2024 will be the peak of the current wave and that 1 in 3 Americans will be infected with COVID during this timeframe.

He says his data also show that on the highest day of the current wave, there will be 2 million new COVID cases, which would lend to many more infections than last winter, which had its highest day of about 1.7 million new infections. While CDC data suggest viral activity levels have been similar the last two Decembers, Hoerger explains that the acceleration in COVID activity in 2023 was faster than in 2022, suggesting there will be a higher peak this season.

“I think people can get a little bit too concerned about the height of the peak,” Hoerger says. “What’s really troubling is just the total number of days with a really high transmission based on my model or if you’re just looking at the wastewater.”

Dr. Albert Ko, infectious disease physician and professor of public health, epidemiology and medicine at Yale School of Public Health, agrees that focusing on peaks isn’t as helpful as stressing that COVID is spreading widely in much of the country right now.

“More important than saying this is more than the last wave or two waves or three waves ago … is that we are getting into surge, and the public should be aware about how to protect themselves,” Ko tells TODAY.com.

A surge this time of year is expected, Dr. William Schaffner, infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, tells TODAY.com, and it’s “perfectly reasonable” to call the current COVID wave the country’s second-largest, he says.

“But I don’t want to panic people,” he explains. “This winter increase is not going to be akin to the previous winter increases, which really stressed hospitals,” though it is likely to keep medical professionals “very busy,” he adds.

Tran stresses that it’s important to understand the burden of COVID beyond hospitalizations and deaths being lower than they were earlier in the pandemic.

“While we’re not seeing the same levels of hospitalizations or deaths as 2020 or 2021, it’s still a very high baseline compared with before the pandemic, and that’s something that we should still care about,” Tran says. He adds that more virus circulating can also lead to increases in long COVID and chronic illness, more people (especially health care workers) missing work and other important events, and immunocompromised people not being able to access essential services, like health care.

COVID-19 mask mandates

Amid a rise in COVID cases, as well as influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), masks mandates have returned in medical settings in several states, Reuters reported:

New York
Illinois
Massachusetts
California

But even if you’re not required to mask, the experts say that now is a good time to wear your N95 or KN95.

“Get your mask out again if you’re going indoors, even to the supermarket,” Schaffner says. “Certainly if you’re traveling, going to religious services, going to that basketball game, where everybody’s close together and cheering, those are environments where the virus can spread.”

If you have some respiratory illness symptoms but not enough to stay home, wear a mask when around other, the experts say. And keep in mind that the CDC recommends wearing a mask for 10 days if you test positive for COVID. You are most contagious the day before your symptoms start and for three to five days afterward.

How bad is the new COVID variant?

The new COVID variant JN.1 is responsible for more than 61% of cases in the U.S. as of the week ending Jan. 6, 2024, according to CDC data. The variant may be more transmissible or better at evading immune protection than previous COVID variants, TODAY.com previously reported.

It also appears to be “intensifying” the spread of COVID this winter, the CDC said in a statement.

“The current strain right now seems to be packing a meaner punch than the prior strains,” Dr. Joseph Khabbaza, a pulmonary and critical care specialist at the Cleveland Clinic, previously told TODAY.com. “Some features of the current circulating strain probably (make it) a little bit more virulent and pathogenic, making people sicker than prior (variants).”

JN.1 COVID variant symptoms

The symptoms you’ll experience if infected by the latest COVID variant, JN.1, will depend on your underlying health and immunity. But generally speaking JN.1 symptoms are similar to those caused by other variants, such as HV.1 and BA.2.86, aka “Pirola.”

According to the CDC, these are:

Sore throat
Congestion
Runny nose
Cough
Fatigue
Headache
Muscle aches
Fever or chills
Loss of sense of taste or smell
Nausea or vomiting
Diarrhea

How to protect yourself in a COVID wave

The experts all agree that the current rate of new COVID cases means it’s time to take precautions to prevent further spread. This is especially important for individuals who are at high risk for severe illness, such as the elderly and immunocompromised.

But even if you or loved ones don’t fall into this category, by taking precautions, you can prevent spreading the virus to someone who may get much sicker than you and reduce your risk of long COVID.

So, the experts urge:

Wearing a mask in indoor settings with lots of people
Considering avoiding crowded settings, especially if you’re high risk
Staying home if you’re sick
COVID testing
Getting the new COVID vaccine, approved for everyone ages 6 months and older since September 2023
Seek out antivirals if you test positive for COVID, especially if you’re high risk

It’s tempting to think the pandemic is over, but Hoerger stresses that data show it isn’t. In fact, Van Kerkhove recently posted on X that we’re heading into the fifth year of the pandemic.

“The bottom line,” Ko says, “is everybody should consider themselves under risk of getting COVID.”

A Ukrainian floating drone that is devastating Russia’s Black Sea fleet can now fire missiles

Business Insider

A Ukrainian floating drone that is devastating Russia’s Black Sea fleet can now fire missiles

Tom Porter – January 15, 2024

Ukraine sends 'army of drones' to fight Russian troops Scroll back up to restore default view.

Ukraine has used sea drones to attack Russia’s Black Sea fleet.
It’s now able to fit them with missiles enabling them to fire at ships, it says.
Ukraine has had to improvise to offset Russia’s naval superiority.

Ukraine claims it has fitted the floating drones it is using to devastate Russia’s Black Sea fleet with missile launchers, making them even more deadly.

Ukraine’s intelligence service, the SBU, in early January released grainy video footage which it claimed showed its “Sea Baby” drones firing missiles at Russian vessels.

According to the Ukrainska Pravda, Russian ships had left a port near Sevastopol in occupied Crimea to sink the drones after an attack — but instead of seeking to outpace them, the drones turned back and fired missiles at the Russian vessels.

It’s unclear exactly when the incident took place, or what kind of rockets were used.

The SBU confirmed the authenticity of the video to Business Insider.

It’s not the only enhancement Ukraine has made to the devices, the report said, with the drones now fitted with up to 850 kilograms of explosives, flamethrowers, $300,000 worth of communications equipment, and material designed to evade radars.

Throughout its two-year-long battle to repel the Russian invasion, Ukraine has had to resort to improvisation and ingenuity to offset Russia’s military and manpower advantages.

One of its most striking successes in 2023 has been inflicting a series of devastating attacks on Russia’s Black Sea fleet, despite its navy being a fraction of the size of Russia’s.

The sea drones, or unmanned surface vehicles (USVs), it’s developed have been vital to the success of the attacks, with the remote-controlled devices used to surveil Russian naval bases and launch attacks on ships by being fitted with explosives.

The drones “have provided Ukraine’s nearly non-existent navy with an asymmetric capability to challenge Russia’s larger and more capable Black Sea Fleet,” Nicholas Johnson, a naval warfare expert with the RAND Corporation, told Business Insider.

“Ukraine’s employment of these small explosive vessels has imposed Russian losses and shown operational impacts on their ability to wage war.”

The drones are built using components that are readily available, are much cheaper than missiles, and don’t need a crew to operate them, notes security expert Wes O’Donnell.

They were invented by Ukrainian security services and used in an attack on the Kerch Strait bridge last July which seriously damaged it.

The drones were used for the first time ever in a naval attack in October 2022, when Ukraine attacked Russian naval vessels docked in Sevastopol, and according to the BBC have been used in around 13 attacks since.

Their capacity to strike Russia’s fleet in its own naval bases has challenged Russia’s dominance of the Black Sea, forcing it to move ships away from Sevastopol to evade attacks, said Johnson.

Vasyl Maliuk, who leads the SBU, told CNN last year that the drones are built without private sector involvement in a secret underground base and are continually being modified and improved on.

Johnson said that fitting the vessels with rocket launchers massively increased the type of targets they could attack.

“This modification would also allow USVs to hold a wider range of assets at risk, potentially including targets ashore, small boats, or even employing surface-to-air missiles to target aircraft,” he said. “By utilizing joint salvos of missiles from USVs in addition to aircraft and ground launchers, Ukraine could leverage multiple axis of attack further complicating Russia’s air defense picture.”

However, they come with some drawbacks. Interruptions to the camera feed can make them difficult to control, and they can go off course, with a drone found washed up ashore near Sevastopol in September 2022 and seized by Russia, reports say.

Johnson told BI that the vessels are vulnerable to air or boat attacks, and their signals can be scrambled by electronic-warfare units, meaning they can be cut off from their controllers.

And recent adaptations, such as fitting them with expensive missiles, mean they are no longer just a relatively cheap way of launching mass attacks on Russian ships, but would have to be used more carefully, he said.

“We are on the brink of an autocratic government, someone who is blatantly saying, If I’m president again, I’m going to be a dictator:” Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong fears for America’s future

Louder

“We are on the brink of an autocratic government, someone who is blatantly saying, If I’m president again, I’m going to be a dictator:” Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong fears for America’s future

Paul Brannigan – January 15, 2024

Green Day‘s Billie Joe Armstrong has spoken about his fears for the direction American politics is taking, and warns that the prospect of an autocratic government in the US is “at our doorstep”.

Armstrong’s band will release their 14th studio album ‘SAVIORS’ on Friday, June 19, and, in a new interview with Vulture, the 51-year-old vocalist/guitarist talks about how the album’s first single, The American Dream Is Killing Me, released back in October last year, deals with the “overwhelming” anxieties that come with being “an over-stressed American”.

“Our politics are so divided and polarized right now,” says Armstrong. “We had an insurrection. We have homeless people in the street. We have so many issues, and they come onto your algorithm feed at such a pace. It just stresses you out, the anxiety of being an American and how it becomes so overwhelming.”

Reflecting on how his band’s new record shares some of the DNA of 2004’s American Idiot album, Armstrong notes, “I think it was easier to satirize George Bush because we didn’t have social media. It was before all the tech bros came in. Now you have these billionaires who would rather shoot a rocket into space than deal with the infrastructure we have here.”

Looking ahead, Armstrong admits that he is concerned by the current political landscape in America.

“We are on the brink of an autocratic government, or someone who is blatantly saying ‘If I’m president again, I’m going to be a dictator’,” he says. “What’s that Maya Angelou quote? When people tell you who they are, believe them. [Actually, ‘When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time’] It’s this exaggeration that became what can actually happen. It’s based on a cult of personality. America is not supposed to be about the cult of personality; we’re supposed to be about a group of people who are making laws that would make the American people’s lives easier and affordable. Getting good jobs, getting good health care, protecting people from corporations taking advantage of them. I feel like we are completely lost on that, the real American ideal.

Canadians worry US democracy cannot survive Trump’s return to White House, poll finds

Reuters

Canadians worry US democracy cannot survive Trump’s return to White House, poll finds

Steve Scherer – January 15, 2024

Former U.S. President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump campaigns, in Indianola

FILE PHOTO: Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau makes a speech, in Vancouver — Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau makes a speech, in Vancouver

OTTAWA (Reuters) – About two-thirds of Canadians surveyed this month said American democracy cannot survive another four years of Donald Trump in the White House, and about half said the United States is on the way to becoming an authoritarian state, a poll released on Monday said.

The November U.S. election is likely to pit President Joe Biden against Trump, who is the clear frontrunner to win the Republican nomination as voting in the presidential primary race kicks off in Iowa on Monday.

Sixty-four percent of respondents in the Angus Reid Institute poll of 1,510 Canadians said they agreed with the statement: “U.S. democracy cannot survive another four years of Donald Trump.” Twenty-eight percent disagreed.

The Jan. 6, 2021 attack on Capitol Hill by Trump supporters seeking to block certification of Biden’s 2020 election win shocked many Canadians, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau publicly blamed Trump for inciting the mob.

Trump has vowed if elected again to punish his political enemies, and he has drawn criticism for using increasingly authoritarian language.

Three times as many Canadians say a Biden victory would be better for Canada’s economy (53%) than a Trump win (18%), according to the poll which was seen exclusively by Reuters. The poll, taken between Jan. 9-11, had a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points

Forty-nine percent of people said the United States is on the way to becoming an authoritarian state and 71% of Canadians say the concept that the rule of law applies equally to everyone is weakening in the United States.

The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment

about the poll.

“What we’re seeing is people quite alarmed about the prospect of a return of Donald Trump,” said Shachi Kurl, president of Angus Reid Institute.

The polling is also “an indictment” of “how poorly Canadians now view the democratic institutions and the checks and balances that in the past people on both sides of the border took for granted,” she added.

American allies around the world and financial markets are watching the election with unease given the isolationism and the protectionist trade policies of Trump’s presidency. Because of their proximity and economic ties, Canadians have more at stake than most countries.

Two-thirds of Canada’s 40 million people live within 100 km (62 miles) of the U.S. border, and the trade relationship with the United States is of existential importance to Canada.

Three-quarters of all exports go to the southern neighbor, and half of its imports come from the United States, including 60% of all imported fresh vegetables.

“One can make the argument that there’s no country that would be more negatively affected by a Trump win than Canada,” said Kim Nossal, a professor of political studies at Queen’s University in Kingston and author of “Canada Alone: Navigating the Post-American World”.

In his first term, Trump forced the renegotiation of the North American trade pact and clashed with Trudeau, who he once called “very dishonest and weak”.

Trump’s “mercantilist view involves thinking of Canada and every other so-called friend of the United States as no friend at all, but just a bunch of free-riders sucking off the wealth of the United States,” Nossal said. “He is the ultimate protectionist.”

There is a provision in the new North American trade pact that requires it to be reviewed for renewal after six years, or during the next American president’s term in 2026.

(Reporting by Steve Scherer; Editing by Alistair Bell)

Russia receiving military-linked goods from Finnish companies

Kyiv Independent

Media: Russia receiving military-linked goods from Finnish companies

Dinara Khalilova – January 15, 2024

Over 20 Finnish companies managed or owned by Russians have been exporting high technology and other goods that can be used in the military industry to Russia, according to an investigation by Finland’s public broadcaster YLE Published on January 15th.

The investigation revealed that at least nine customers of the Finnish companies have direct links to the Russian military sector and intelligence agencies such as Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB).

These are small logistics firms operating mostly in southeastern Finland, near major logistics hubs, YLE wrote. At least four of them are already subjects of criminal investigations.

A Russian-linked company operating in Lappeenranta has sent to Russia “numerous packages” with sensors, diesel engines, fuel pumps, and transmission equipment, which experts have classified as critical supplies in warfare, according to the investigation.

According to Russian public procurement data, two of the firm’s clients have ties to the FSB, with one of the clients posting a letter on their website thanking the FSB for good cooperation.

Similar components were reportedly found in destroyed Russian weapons and vehicles in Ukraine, but not all of them were subjected to Western sanctions, which has made it easier to export them to Russia.

Other products exported to Russia by the Finnish companies include equipment for military research, product development, and intelligence activities, as well as engine parts and electronics, the media outlet wrote.

It is not clear, though, whether the Russian military has specifically used the goods exported from the Finnish companies covered in the investigation.

According to YLE, some goods were exported from Finland to Russia through Uzbekistan, which Russia has reportedly used to evade Western sanctions.

Following the outbreak of the full-scale war against Ukraine, Western countries imposed extensive sanctions against Russia, banning imports of electronics and other goods critical for the production of high-tech weapons like missiles or drones.

In spite of these restrictions, Moscow continues to acquire dual-use goods via third-party countries like Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Turkey, or China.